Revathi: Grace and Grit

She has been working in the movie business for the past 40 years and she still doesn’t have a manager. “My mother handled my career for the first three years, got bored and left. So, whether it is dates or rates, I managed my own career and continue to do so.” She has a few clauses though: No unnecessary bad language. Nothing designed to tease viewers. Nothing to make her uncomfortable. “My generation still tries to hold on to old values,” says Asha Kelunni Nair aka Revathi.

“Quite early on,” she says, “Bharathiraja, my first director on Mann Vasanai in 1983, taught me that I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.” Bharathiraja, who made social realism commercial­ly acceptable, cast her as Muthupechi, a village girl who becomes the cause of an internecine rural war. It was the first of several roles, which made her a star who was very much an ac­tor. So whether it was her blockbuster pair­ing with Malayalam superstar Mohanlal in Priyadarshan’s comedy Kilukkam (1991) as the mentally challenged tourist Nandini or as the haughty dancer Bhanumathi in IV Sasi’s feudal melo­drama Devasuram (1993) in an industry known for ignoring its women at best and disrespecting them at worst, Revathi, 56, stood out. In other film industries, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi, she has had a career spanning from Tamil film Mouna Ragam (1986), where she played Divya, a wife who wants out of an arranged marriage within days of the wedding, to the spell-binding Luna Luka of the long jackets and magical impre­cations in Tooth Pari: When Love Bites, Netflix’s new fantasy series.

Much before anyone knew the term, Revathi was a pan-Indian actor, as comfortable as the naughty prankster opposite Salman Khan in the Hindi film, Love (1991), as she was as the spurned wife in Balu Mahendra’s Marupadiyum (1993), the Tamil remake of Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth (1982). Her drunken con­frontation scene with her adulterous husband is the stuff of classics, veering from rage to jealousy, humiliation to victory. Revathi has always been the epitome of grace and gravitas. And now, a whole lot of fun. In Tooth Pari, there she is, the vampire slayer, gathering the troops, the Cutmundus, to take on the “neeche ke log”; here she is battling little Rumi on the banks of the Hooghly; and there she is again, meeting an old lover who is trying to tempt her. Luna Luka cuts a fine figure, adding an imposing character in a filmog­raphy that has been consistently great. Plus, adds Revathi, “I was so happy I got to do action.”

Over the years Revathi, the actor, has left an indelible mark, whether it was as Kamal Haasan’s young wife, Panchavarnam, in Thevar Magan (1992) or Venkatesh’s spirited girlfriend, Maggie, in Prema (1989), remade as Love. “I have always been selective about my roles. Saying no isn’t easy, especially to requests from friends, but I’ve learnt to do so diplomat­ically and do only those things I believed in.” Yet there was no strategy, she says. Bharathiraja’s |Pudhumai Penn (1983) where she played Seetha, who leaves her undeserving husband, changed her, “elevating me to the league of actors not stars and making it impossible to do roles with no meat.”

But powerful as Revathi’s performanc­es have been, it is her steadfast feminism that has stood out, guiding her work on and off the screen. From ensuring there was an all-woman crew on her first direc­torial venture, Mitr: My Friend, in 2002, to becoming a founding member of Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), formed after a Malayali actor was assaulted on her way to a dubbing session, Revathi has always put women first.

Bina Paul was part of Mitr as film editor and is a founding member of the WCC. She says, “At that time it was quite unusual to have an all-woman crew and the experience was so enjoyable. Now that I recall, it was quite amazing that Revathi was so aware at that time that women needed to be fore fronted. I think it was her work with NGOs and in the film industry that made it apparent to her. She was almost visionary. The camaraderie, the fun we had together, the touches it brought to the film were all amazing. After that I got to know her through WCC. I realised her immense sensitivity to women, not only in the film industry but also when it came to mental health and legal recourse. She has al­ways been so proactive, almost single-mindedly swimming against the current in a very male film industry.”

There are many bows in an actor’s quiver. The trick is not to let a particular arrow be so identifiable that the work gets predictable. “Revathi has a deceptive spontaneity,” says film scholar Maithili Rao. “She has an un-accented voice that lets her play an Indian woman from any linguistic group or geographical location. In nuance, enunciation, modulation she brings authenticity and rootedness. In Mouna Ragam, a Mills and Boon-ish story that transplants an outgoing girl from the clutter of a middle-class Chennai home to the ethnic chic minimalism of a Delhi flat, Revathi’s eyes give her away, a glimmer of emotion shining through and her stiffness softens under appreciation of her husband’s sensitivity to her moods.” In Anjali (1990), the distraught protective mother, Chitra, is almost febrile, says Rao. “Taut as a bowstring, ready to snap when emotion overwhelms, Revathi is brilliant and holds her own against the swarm of adorable kids who are natural scene steal­ers. A challenge, really, in a film where the kids of a housing colony are left, right and centre in the narrative.”

The ability to play the ordinary Indian woman comes naturally to someone whose father was in the Army, and who was used to the itinerant life, studying at Kendriya Vidyalaya. Her fellow actors admire her innate confi­dence. Kushboo Sundar who starred with her in the romance Kizhakku Vaasal (1990) laughs and says she is “envious” of Revathi’s filmography. “The movies she has done are amazing and the roles au­thor backed. But more than that, I have always admired her confidence and brilliance. She stands up for what she believes in, whether it is helping cancer survi­vors or the disabled. And she has lived life on her own terms, not caring about social norms. She is a hands-on mother, takes care of her parents and has been there for her sister through her turmoil. Even when she and her hus­band went their separate ways, she never made it ugly. She has always maintained her dignity.” And her friendships. She is part of the Class of 80s started in 2009 by fellow actors Suhasini Maniratnam and Lissy Priyadarshan, which is a posse of friends. They have a WhatsApp group where they share news, and try to meet on festive occasions.

After a fallow time between the ages of 35 and 45, which she calls her “dull period,” she re-emerged with a series of roles written for her by filmmakers who have long admired her. Like Rahul Sadasivan who cast her as the mother in his Malayalam horror thriller, Bhoothakaalam (2022). “I didn’t have any other choice but her. I’m a big fan and have always loved her work. She has decades of acting behind her. Getting her to play Asha was a dream come true because I wanted the central relationship to be of the mother and son. That’s the way I narrated the story to her, and how something as simple as love can over­come all obstacles.”

Playing mother can make a per­formance cloying, notes Rao. “Be it Margarita with a Straw (2014) or 2 States (2014) Revathi reveals different aspects of mothering. Adept at finding solutions, she is tough and tender, fiercely protective of her cerebral palsy-stricken daughter. And she is a delight in 2 States, snooty as only a Tam Bram Mami can be, dealing out snubs to the loud Punjabi woman with the finesse of a card sharp.” In Nagesh Kukunoor’s quartet of Modern Love Hyderabad series on Prime Video, as Mehrunissa, Revathi as the visiting mother overcomes her prickly, defen­sive daughter’s off-putting distance by cooking up a storm of delicacies. To play a woman adept and absorbed in cooking demands ease and familiarity. She almost conveys the taste and flavours wafting from her kitchen with her expansive body language and wins over the thawing daughter and the audience. Revathi’s method is simple. For Mehrunissa she says, “I imagined her personality and con­nected with that. For Luna Luka, I used something from a Tarot card reader I met. I am an observer and whenever I meet people there is something of them that re­mains somewhere in my consciousness.”

Salaam Venky, (2022) which she directed, was on her mind since 2007 and was a tough story to tell. “The life of Sujata, on whom it is based, was far more dramatic than reality can be.” says Revathi. She plans to direct a film a year now and is bubbling over with stories she has written over the years. “Sometimes there is a story you want to tell from your perspective so that’s the first thing I look for. If I’m able to connect with the circumstances, the place and the characters, then I build on it. Sometimes there are instances of things I’ve seen or read or heard and that evolves into a story. Basically I need to connect to the plot and the characters, I like to tell stories that are unsaid, something that leaves people moved in some way or the other.”

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